Decentralized Dynamic HostConfiguration inWide-Area Overlays ofVirtual Workstations

Wide-Area Overlays ofVirtual Workstations (WOWs) havebeenshowntoprovide excellent infrastructure fordeploying highthroughput computing environments oncommodity desktop machines by(1)offering scalability toa large numberofnodes, (2)facilitating addition ofnew nodesevenifthey arebehind NATs/Firewalls and(3)supporting unmodified applications andmiddleware. However, deployment ofWOWsfromscratch still requires setting up abootstrapping network andmanaging centralized DHCP servers forIPaddress management. Inthis paperwedescribe novel techniques thatallow multiple users tocreateindependent, isolated virtual IPnamespaces fortheir WOWswithout requiring adedicated bootstrapping infrastructure, andtoprovision dynamic hostconfiguration (e.g. IPaddresses) tounmodified DHCPclients without requiringthesetup andmanagement ofacentral DHCP server Wegivequalitative andquantitative arguments toestablish thefeasibility ofourapproach.